Revisiting Rockers: Why the Styles of the ’70s Reggae Cult Classic Still Endure

In the 1978 classic reggae film Rockers, Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace swaggers about the Kingston, Jamaica, ghetto he calls home, dapping up all of his sidekicks, and patting some down for money owed. Immediately it’s apparent that while the famed Burning Spear drummer is slight of frame and of simple means, he’s a man of considerable style.

Seen racing through the crumbling streets atop a fire engine red scooter, selling his covetable 7-inch reggae records out of the back, he chooses a wildly insouciant navy Adidas tracksuit, replete with yellow racing strips, tucking his dreads under a kaleidoscopic bowler hat. Wading through a flock of friends flushed in a pool of soft blues and pinks, he dons a fitted mint green T-shirt splashed in similar hues, his khaki flares billowing out from under him. And while wailing on the drums, jamming with his fellow “rockers,” the unsuspecting trendsetter chooses an eye-popping combination of a red tie-dye T-shirt and matching red “beaver” hat. As he slips from one mind-boggling ensemble to the next, without so much as checking his reflection in the mirror, it’s clear that Wallace’s “stylee” is born out of pure instinct.

In fact, so it goes with all of Wallace’s on-screen compatriots. As Ted Bafaloukos’s film carries the viewer through brilliant performances by some of the biggest reggae musical acts of the time (think Gregory Isaacs) and a campy Robin Hood–esque heist that forms the plot, it’s clear that fashion was practically second nature for this crew. As Avrom Robin, Rockers’s associate producer says, dress was a natural means of distinguishing oneself in the crowded neighborhoods of the Jamaican capital. “Kingston is so packed with people—‘strivers,’ as they are sometimes referred to—who are all trying to get ahead and get a leg up. You’ve really got to do something to stand out from everyone else, and there were a limited number of ways in that context and with the resources those people had at the time,” he explains. “One is style—how you dress. Tailoring and sewing was a widely accepted skill for men in Jamaica, so a lot of guys made a living making tams, belts, and other accessories, and also by tailoring down shirts.”

With this sentiment in mind, the movie’s costume designer, Eugenie Bafaloukos, set about devising scene-stealing looks for the leads, pulling from army-navy surplus stores in New York and imbuing the influence of spaghetti Westerns—a huge point of fascination for ’70s Jamaica—and the vibrant Caribbean color palette into the ensembles she assembled. “I don’t think anyone was bringing in elements from the Paris runways or Hollywood, for that matter, but they were trying to arrange the stuff so it looked good.”

So if not the Paris collections, where were characters like Richard “Dirty Harry” Hall or Errol “Knatty Garfield” Brown getting the idea to throw together an unexpectedly natty mix of fitted chambray shirts with high-waisted trousers and multicolored bowler hats or vibrantly hued tracksuits? Marcus Burrowes, who cites the film as a major inspiration for his own streetwear brand—that would be RockersNYC—explains it’s a combination of Jamaicans wanting to emulate the U.S. and U.K. artists they admired, a fascination with kung fu movies and spaghetti Westerns, and, well . . . just natural élan. “The Western style is definitely a big influence. The star Dirty Harry got his name from the character Clint Eastwood played. Another influence is karate movies: I know in the ’70s people definitely wanted to look like Bruce Lee, who wore all those tracksuits. But with these guys, it’s a lot of improv, they’re not really planning [their looks] out. They just throw on things and are like, ‘Yeah, this works.’ ”

Regardless of that sense of nonchalance, there were certain style essentials the rockers had to have, as Burrowes explains: namely, “beaver” hats that were made in London and imported into Jamaica; Adidas sneakers; and Clarks Desert Boots. Trousers were specially tailored by “celebrity tailors” in downtown Kingston; there, the customer would pick out the fabric (“pinstripe gabardine, most likely,” Burrowes says), and the tailor would make the pair to measure. The signature cut at the time was fitted at the hip and a wide-leg pant leg. Of course, the Adidas tracksuit was a must, too, along with Arrow fitted button-downs, the ensemble tied together with yarn-knitted belts and berets. Those styles represented the cultural zeitgeist of the era, and they would eventually disappear as dancehall music in turn came into vogue. “With dancehall, the look kind of changed even more and became more modern,” says Burrowes. “By the time the late ’80s came about, it was completely changed. People were trying to appear futuristic, with zippers and metallic fabrics made of polyester and nylons.” Now, with the resurgence of roots reggae, could a revival of rockers style be far behind?